


Sound

by Paige242



Category: Superman & Lois (TV 2021)
Genre: Gen, new power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 13:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paige242/pseuds/Paige242
Summary: Jon gets his first power and Clark helps him come to terms with it.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Jonathan "Jon" Kent (Superman & Lois TV 2021) & Jordan Kent & Lois Lane
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	Sound

**Author's Note:**

> I had a request for this story from a reviewer so here it is- thanks for the idea, AD. I don’t feel as confident in my Jon characterization as I do in my Jordan characterization but I hope I pulled it off :) 
> 
> Takes place about a year after season 1.

It started off like a completely normal day. 

Jon had gotten up, gone to school, and (miraculously) managed to stay awake during all of his morning classes. Lunch had been some sort of unappetizing pasta dish at the cafeteria, and he’d hung out with Jordan and Sarah a bit (third wheeling, as always) before heading off to physics. 

He was in his second year at Smallville High now and, while he had accepted his lot in life, it did feel ridiculously mundane sometimes. 

The same hallways, the same people.

The same sorts of classes that never seemed to pose much of a challenge for him. He was top of most of his classes, rivalled only by his brother. 

He’d heard people mutter that the Kent boys must have gotten an edge at their fancy big city schools growing up. But Jon knew the truth. 

He may not have had any of his father’s active powers but he was still half-Kryptonian and that came with certain natural advantages. He was smart, he had a good memory, and he could read exceptionally fast. 

In fact, he’d read through this particular physics textbook in the first few weeks of school and hadn’t struggled to grasp any of it. Which was why he was currently finding it so hard to pretend to pay attention. 

Mrs. Jansen had caught him drifting off before and (despite his stellar grades), she wasn’t a big fan of his for some reason. He had to try extra hard to look engaged in this class...without annoying everyone else by providing all the right answers.

But it was a challenge sometimes. 

She was droning on about velocity now and Jon found himself stealing a glance at the clock for a moment, his eyes fixating on the second hand as it slowly ticked around. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

Maybe it was because he was so heavily fixated on it, but he could have sworn that the clock was getting louder with each passing moment. Was it broken? He looked around the classroom, wondering if anyone else had become distracted by the loud vibration it was starting to give off. 

Nope, everyone else was looking at the whiteboard. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

It seemed impossible that they could all ignore it so easily. It was starting to drown out the sound of Mrs. Jansen’s lecture. 

Tick. 

_ “Napoleon’s conquest might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the cold Russian winter.”  _

Despite himself, Jon turned to look over his shoulder, startled by the sudden sound of another voice. That was Mr. Khan, the history teacher...he usually taught outside in Portable two, but somehow his voice had just carried into the physical classroom. 

A few of his classmates shot him an odd look. 

_ “You don’t have a fever, but nice try.”  _

_ “So, if you take the square root of twelve...”  _

_ “The watercolours are on the counter, you can use them for your assignment.”  _

Tick. 

_ “I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me, Tim! I hate you!”  _

_ “Bonjour, je suis...”  _

_ “Mom! Catch the ball!” _

Tick. 

Jon felt his heart begin to race. It was as if the floodgates had suddenly opened up and he was being barraged by a wall of sound. 

There were so many voices. 

Students. Teachers. 

Children playing at the park down the street. 

And as he looked around the room, his head spinning and his eyes wide, it seemed like no one else could hear the overwhelming wall of noise. 

It was just him...

No.

He covered his ears, no longer caring about creating a scene. He needed it to stop, it was too much. 

But his hands did nothing. 

The voices continued. 

_ “I don’t want to go down the slide.”  _

_ “Come on Max, let’s skip fifth period.” _

_ “Seventy-eight percent of the earth’s atmosphere is composed of nitrogen...”  _

Tick. 

“Mr. Kent! Are you covering your ears!?” 

His head snapped up at the sound of his name. He could barely focus on the woman in front of him and he briefly registered that Mrs. Jensen was pissed. He couldn’t muster the energy to care, though. 

The sounds were coming at his from every direction. He needed to get out. 

“He’s sick, I’m taking him to the nurse.” A very familiar voice rang louder than the hundreds of others and he felt a pair of hands pull him up from his seat with significant force. 

_ Jordan.  _

Thank god Jordan was in the class too. 

Jon felt like the world was spinning around him, one terrible wall of sound, as his brother led him out of the classroom and into the abandoned hall. 

The clock was just as loud as it had been before, and so were all of the voices. 

“My ears,” Jon managed to choke out, the panic rising within him with each passing moment. “I can hear everything.” 

“Shit,” his brother swore, giving him a sympathetic look. He then glanced towards the door, squinting at it for a second before pulling Jon further down the hall. 

“This way. It’s empty. We need dad.” 

The other teen helped him stumbled into the abandoned classroom and shut the door behind them. It made little difference to his ears— the sounds continued— but there was a certain relief to knowing that they were alone. 

Jordan pulled out the ELT as Jon crouched against the wall, instinctively curling up into the fetal position. He put his arms over his head, knowing that it wouldn’t help but desperate for any ounce of relief.

Unfortunately, all that came next was a ear-piercing high pitched squeal. Jon screamed, his ears nearly throbbing with the pain of it all.

“Focus on my voice Jon. I’m here.” He felt his brother place a hand on his back and he did his best to focus. 

He could hear a steady drumbeat. 

A beating heart. 

And he knew instantly it was Jordan’s

It soothed him for a moment, in a way that nothing else could. 

“What is going on?” 

Another familiar voice, he could just barely pick it out from the sound of the crowd. 

“It’s Jon, I think he just got super-hearing. He started panicking in class and he says he can hear everything. You need to help him dad.” 

He felt his father at his side, felt him wrap his arm around his waist and pull him up. 

“Jon, if you can hear me, hold on.” 

xxxxxxxxx

He could hardly remember the flight. 

The sound of the wind rushing past his ears had overcome him, interspersed with the random sounds he could still hear from below.

Jon knew the world was a populated place, but he’d never really grasped what that meant until now. In Smallville, it was easy to forget just how many people there were. 

And for the first time, he could hear them crying out. 

_ “Don’t leave me.”  _

_ “It hurts.” _

_ “I can’t believe she’s gone...” _

It was as if he could almost feel their pain. 

When they finally landed in the middle of a beautiful valley Jon took a shaky breath, stumbling a few feet away from his father before sitting on a cold rock. They appeared to be in the middle of some sort of mountain range and, much to his relief, things were a bit quieter here. 

He could hear the water, and the wind. The fish in the nearby lake and the faint sound of voices far away. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. For the first time since this ordeal had started, he felt like he could focus. 

“Dad,” he looked up at his father, addressing him for the first time since his arrival. “I...” 

Despite feeling so incredibly overwhelmed, Jon knew exactly what had just happened. He had been foolish to think that anyone else in that classroom could possibly hear what he’d heard. The clock hadn’t gotten louder, he realized with a tug in the pit of his stomach, and the voices had not been in the room. 

This was a kryptonian thing. 

His first official power. 

Irrefutable evidence that he had not escaped the same fate as his brother after all. 

“I know, Jon, it’s okay,” his dad said softly, taking a very careful step towards him. Despite his caution, he could still hear the loud crunch of the grass and the forceful rustle of his cape. 

The world was so full of sounds, he realized, he had just never noticed before. 

He didn’t think he wanted to. 

“You need to make this stop,” the boy began again, feeling a slight prickle behind his eyes as he looked up at his dad, “I can’t live like this. You need to make it go away.” 

He knew before he saw his father’s crestfallen expression that his hopes would amount to nothing. 

“I can’t,” Clark said, regret shining in his blue eyes, “this is part of who you are, Jon. Part of growing up.” 

Jon had never been an angry person (tantrums were totally Jordan’s territory) but he felt an unfamiliar wave of rage rush through him. It was hard enough being here, listening to the persistent sounds in the valley. And what he had felt back at school had simply been intolerable. 

Unacceptable. 

This _could not_ be his life. 

“Bullshit,” he muttered, hating the sound his hoodie made as he turned his body, “don’t try to normalize this, dad. This isn’t supposed to be happening to me! Jordan is the one cursed with your powers, not me,” he hardly noticed his dad flinch, “he’s the Kryptonian, I’m the human.” 

Sure, there had been moments when Jon had felt a bit of envy over his brother’s powers but, after a year of nothing, he’d become pretty comfortable with the idea that it simply wasn’t his fate. Everyone always said he was a Lane— he’d figured that he just took after mom and he was pretty happy about that. It meant that he could go about his life just like he’d planned. 

Until now, that was.

How was he supposed to function like this? Could he ever have a conversation in a normal setting again? Could he be around other people? Maybe he’d have to stay out here in the mountains, living alone in a cabin with nothing but a set of noise-cancelling headphones. 

“That’s not how it works, Jon,” his dad said with a troubled frown, “you both have the same hybrid biology, you’re just developing different things at different times.” 

“Hybrids,” Jon scoffed, a another wave of anger hitting him at the sound of that description, “I think what you mean to say is half-alien freaks.” 

“Jon...” he could tell that he’d hit a bit of a nerve but, frankly, he was glad. He needed someone to be angry at right now, and technically this was his father’s fault. 

The man let out a heavy sigh, his eyes closing for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. 

“You probably don’t want to hear it, but I know exactly how you feel right now,” he tried again, face etched with sympathy. “I was fourteen when it happened to me and I thought I’d never leave my room again. It gets better, Jon. The first few days will be hard but then you stop noticing it. Unless you hone in on it, it becomes an unnoticeable background noise. Like the sound of your own breathing or the hum of a refrigerator. It’s there, but you don’t think about it constantly.” 

Jon had to admit that hearing that helped a bit. His dad had found a way to function with the power, so it probably wasn't as impossible as it seemed at the moment. 

He’d still give back this ‘gift’ if he had a choice, though. 

“Can’t you...I don’t know, take me to the Fortress and rewrite my DNA or something?” He paused, looking down towards the crisp green grass, “I was fine not having powers. I’m happy with who I am, I don’t need them.” 

His dad offered a sad smile, “there is no technology to change who you are,” he began, instantly dashing his hopes once more. Briefly, Jon found himself wondering if the man would have done it to himself if it had been possible. Something about his tone hinted that he would have— perhaps not now, but at some point in his life.

He really did know how this felt, in more ways than one. 

“I’m glad you’ve always felt happy about who you are. That’s something I’ve always admired about you, frankly.” 

Jon looked up, a bit surprised to hear him say that. The most powerful man in the world admired something about him? It almost seemed laughable. 

“You’ve always been so positive, so well balanced and grounded and caring. Not many people are,” his dad paused again, “but here’s the thing— you may not have known it, but this has always been part of you as well. And I know you can find a way to accept it and flourish with it, just like you have with everything else that has ever come your way.” 

Part of him still wanted to protest. To find a way out. But, deep down, he knew his father was right. 

He’d spent a year pretending, and a year hoping. Secretly, though, he had realized he was destined to be different the moment his dad had lifted that truck. 

“Okay,” he breathed, trying not to focus on the lapping lake or the deafening calls of the birds above. “How do I do this, then? How do I get it under control?” 

Beside him, Clark smiled. 

“It’ll take some time,” he explained, “but I found that the best approach was focusing on something steady and familiar. Something comforting. For me, it was the sound of my mother breathing. I focused on that one sound for a few days and, when I let go, everything else seemed easier to control.” 

Jon nodded with a newfound determination, suddenly knowing what what he needed to do. 

“Alright, then I need you to take me back to Jordan.” 

xxxxxx

In the end, it took Jon three days of focusing on Jordan’s heartbeat to finally get a handle on his new power. 

Jordan had been fine with it, especially since it meant getting a couple of days off school, and mom and dad had done their best to keep the house as quiet as possible. 

It made sense, he supposed, that the sound his ears had first heard in the womb was the one that was best able to retrain him now. It was the most familiar sound there was. 

His mother found it sweet and sentimental, and his dad had been proud of his impressive progress. 

Jon hadn’t really care about any of that. He was just happy to finally return to school the following Monday with his ears in a manageable state. 

Even Mrs. Jensen’s angry glare hadn’t been able to put a damper on his mood that day. 

And, ironically, he was able to listen intently as they started their next unit on the speed of sound.


End file.
